Seeds Library Cafe, the brainchild of Boulder County Farmers’ Market director Brian Coppom and the result of a collaboration between the market and the City of Boulder, held a preliminary celebration this morning before the cafe's grand opening on Monday. In a beautifully designed, sunlight-filled space on the Boulder Public Library bridge, invitees sampled coffee from Silver Canyon Coffee and a variety of baked treats from Brillig Works Bakery, both of which will be part of the regular menu once Seeds opens to the public.

The cafe will serve sandwiches, soups, coffee and pastries, and is intended as an educational hub as well as a great place to linger over a latte, says publicity director Katie Lazor, who envisions panels and workshops, picnics, children’s events, film screenings and possibly cookbook signings. Local products will be showcased, with 75 percent of the food locally prepared and produced. Coffee obviously can’t be grown in Colorado, Lazor says, but Silver Canyon is a long-established, family-run local roaster, and the owners are working to provide a seasonally grown product for the cafe: Coffee is much more vibrant and flavorful in season, she says.

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The conversations were lively and profoundly food-centered. People discussed cookbooks and blogs, the farm-fresh movement, animal husbandry, restaurants, cooking, growing vegetables. Avi Gross and Ezra Sackett—both talented former students of mine—parsed the meaning of the word kosher in contemporary life over coffee: These days, the three of us noted, some Jews are strictly observant while others believe that if food is ethically produced it is kosher in the deepest meaning of the word. Neither of them has ever knowingly tasted pork, though Ezra once ate pepperoni by mistake as a kid.

Seeds, which will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and noon to 5 p.m Sunday, promises to be an elegant addition to Boulder’s downtown.